Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

Cronch, an Akk Dog and handler Mara Jade
Obstacle 7 OOC: I know I'm super late getting to this thread (I'm so sorry, October fell apart on me!) so I'll just jump in at the current spot)

Mara rubbed her temples as she finally managed to wrangle Cronch back onto the obstacle course, the tattered remnants of his dog costume still clinging together. When a dog is the size of a small car, an ewok looks eerily like a squirrel. It had taken her several hours, and nearly a diplomatic incident, to return the dog to his rightful location. "Don't run off again, ok Cronch? Look, they're already several obstacles in! Go ahead and join in with the group, ok?"

Cronch hungry! Maybe whine? Let's whine! Mara regarded him dourly. No treat? "No treats until you finish the course, Cronch." Cronch whined again, then moved towards the course, hurtling towards a very large rock that the others were climbing over. Why climb large rock? Could eat large rock? Cronch attacked a corner of the boulder with gusto, disappointed by the lack of flavor. No eat large rock. He scrambled up it, noticing for the first time that some of the other dogs were nearly as big as he was. Big dogs run fast! Cronch charged up the ramp, barely even noticing as some orcs popped up behind it. His large bulk readily knocked them out of the way, his scales grazing their skin as he dove by. Cronch sniffed one as he reached the top of the rock, licking the orcs face.

Green person taste bad! Cronch no eat, Cronch need grass for bad taste! With that, Cronch found a bush and happily cleaned his tongue on its leaves.

Bugs and fireworks behind him, Tindalos was certain now that the weird parts of the obstacle course were over and done and there would be nothing strange or contrived or… why was there a river in the middle of the obstacle course? Was this done on purpose? It was wasn’t it? He knew it! They put a river right in the middle of the obstacle course on purpose, just to mess with him. At least they were nice enough to put a bridge over it. Huh? None of that made any sense. How could they put a river there? Were the wolf and wolfhound magic or something? There were things not adding up here, and it wasn’t that Tindalos was very much confused and had potentially inhaled bad fumes from lead paint. He was thinking clearly, or he was thinking foggily. This wagon train of thought was heading right off a cliff and into a river.

Oh right! There was a river to ford. Oh, no, there was a bridge. Thank the canine gods! There was something there, someone. It looked, it looked like a small care bear that had taken on a meth habit. Hmmm. This was going to be tricky.

Tindalos stopped a few paces away from the deranged looking bear thing. Bears weren’t supposed to look like this. This was a creature of a bear’s worst nightmare! Tindalos growled. The sound came from deep in his chest. This was a creature that should not exist. It was an unBEARable abomination. For the sake of all bears out there, he would put an end to this, this thing. He charged. The thing squeaked out some creepy, unintelligible gibberish and brandished a spear at him but Tindalos would not be deterred. He bounded, faster and faster and faster until he was very nearly flying. The tentacles attached to him wiggled freely. On and on he came, faster and faster. Tindalos could smell the fear coming from the demon meth bear. It spurred him on to go faster. He barked a final warning to the sad little creature.

At the last second, with Tindalos just a half a length away from him, the pseudo ursid ran away, saying something about eating mothers but Tindalos didn’t have time to figure out what the hell that thing was saying. It was probably high anyway.

Satisfied with his task, Tindalos trotted across the bridge and over the river.

Obstacle 6

Lûlmashnikh hears roaring waters ahead. That does not matter. He has faced fire, lightning, an Elf and made an enemy of one (or a few thousands) of the Dark Lord's staunch allies. Nothing is sacred anymore. What's a swim compared to that?

Oh shire. Oh noes. It's NOT a swim!
Zaugloth groans as the warg he's currently astride skids to a halt and shrinks several inches. "What is it now?!"
"I'm scared of heights," whines the warg, tail between his legs.
"Oh for the love of..."
"What is love?"
"It's 'run so I don't hurt you'."
"Don't hurt me! Don't hurt me no more!"
"Will you move then?"
"Nope."

Zaugloth invents a few new swear words as he tears off some cloth strips that have somehow survived the race this far and braids them into a blindfold. "You're gonna have to trust me on this. Now stop wriggling!" Eventually he manages to fasten the blindfold over Lûlmashnikh's eyes. Then he hops back on and urges the warg forward, guiding him by pulling at the harness in the direction he wants him to go. The bridge creaks ominously but amazingly holds their weight, although it stretches quite a bit as they traverse it. A few planks fall off as well.

"D'you hear a rat?" asks Lûlmashnikh.
"Nope."
"Weird. I swear I heard a rat. And something's biting my leg."
"It's probably just another flea. Move on!"
"Do fleas squeak?"
"Only when they're caught between your teeth."
"If you say so... OH DARKNESS I JUST STEPPED IN SOMETHING AND IT WAS WAY BIGGER THAN A RAT."
"Nar, don't... Not so fast, we're gonna-"
"I BELIEVE I CAN FLYYY!" howls the warg and leaps forward, only barely making it across to the other side.

“Look at them go!” the wolf ruffed to Yávië. “Costumes aflame or in tatters. Covered in bugs. Blindfolded and screaming over the bridge.” They were doing rather well with the various curveballs (he had learned this term from Yávië the sports announcer) the obstacles had thrown them. “These are mostly tough dogs,” he admitted. The huge warg who’d needed blindfolding and wishful thinking to cross the bridge was lucky it had its orc handler.

They would have to move along to keep up with the contestants. “Let’s see what they make of this one!” he said, delightedly, as he and the wolfhound took off to catch up with the leaders.

With a loud slurping sound, Cronch appeared. The creature was licking leaves. “Hmm,” rumbled the wolf. “Where did you come from? You know you were supposed to start from the beginning?” He tilted his head at the creature. It must be vegetarian, he concluded. All those leaves. “Well, back to the beginning with you! I want to see you handling everything we have thrown at the others. I’ll be watching from afar.” He chomped playfully at the air before running off.

(OOC: No harm whatsoever in joining late, @Negotiator! We do ask that each contestant completes the obstacles in order, from the beginning. You’re welcome to edit your existing post to be Cronch starting from the beginning. Feel free to post as much as you like to catch up, provided at least one other person - contestant or GM - has posted after each of your posts. That goes for you too, @A BEAR A BEAR! )

Tindalos was finally running and in the clear, he was free as, as a bird? No, he wasn’t a bird. He was feeling the effects of that paint, that’s for sure. He thought the paint elves used were more plant based. Maybe, maybe they were “plant based.” That seemed more up their alley anyways. Elves, getting high off painting. No wonder they did it so much. Tindalos was going to look into it. How? Well that’s not for you to worry about, Tindalos would find a way to get his plant paint and see the universe.

Though…

Apparently this trip was not going well. Tindalos could swear he saw orcs running around in the pathway. Right? Orcs? Here? Wow, they didn’t even look real! They looked all rubbery and fake, and they smelled like goose shire. What did that smell like? Probably like the nastiest thing Tindalos could think of. What was the nasty think he could think of? Hmmmm. Nope, don’t think about that kinda stuff. That didn’t lead anywhere good. Know what is good though? Deer. Tindalos loved deer. He was really hungry all of the sudden. He could really go for some deer right about now. There was probably some deer behind the pretend orcs. He just had to get passed them. He belched. Whatever he had eaten before did not smell as nice coming back up. The orcs, they couldn’t really be orcs because that was just too silly, didn’t like the smell either and they all ran away, but they were covered in goose poo so the added smell shouldn’t have bothered them that much. That’s how Tindalos knew those weren’t real, no orc would care if a dog belched and goose crapped.

He woofed and sniffed his sheet again. MMMMmmmMMmm, as the Chamberlain would say.

OOC:( I am a bad, bad bear, I humbly offer myself up for judgement for the bear council)

"You're quite getting the hang of this," Yávië woofed admiringly at his friend. "There's that small feathery one still in the lead. What a drive to win he has, an inspiration to us all! Two others have made it past the bridge...hey, do you think the big one is okay? What his name again? Started with a T? He doesn't seem entirely focused, if you know what I mean. Oh! But she is! Cutiepants the Tiny Dragon is a TERROR! Slash, cut! Krrrrch! Kraaaaatch! Oof, I'm glad those aren't my eyes..."

“That is a very buoyant ghost,” remarked the wolf. The Horrible Goose ghost had flapped almost serenely across the penultimate obstacle. “I was hoping someone would tempt the skeletons,” he grumbled. “I’d like a nice femur to gnaw on once all this is done.”

THE FINAL OBSTACLE

The Goose was weary from his headlong flight;
Amongst the gravestones as the cold fog curled
His strength had drained from him with every fright
That spooked him as his battered wings unfurled.

At last the task was done, and Goose was free
Of graveyards and the dead who lay in wait;
But one last obstacle the Goose could see
One final challenge in the Goose Home Straight:

Five hurdles placed upon the track to clear.
Goose fluffed his feathers. This didn’t look tricky,
For after all, what has a Goose to fear
when he can fly? .... Well, Goose is sticky;

The mallow coating weighed his feathers down
And even though he fluttered o’er the first
His wings were tired as he sought the crown
Of victor: Goose was struggling, and cursed.

He hopped and shrieked and honked and flapped his wings
Borne up by rage and greed of glory. Fly!
Just one more hurdle, then those blasted things
Will be behind you. Goose flew. He had to try:

The final hurdle, slatted, huge and tall.
Goose flutters limply, cannons like a ball.
His head gets stuck between the slats! Oh no!
Momentum takes Goose on; nowhere to go;

He backflips over with his beak still trapped:
But he was over! Then poor Goose collapsed.

Yávië eyed the collapsed totally-not-a-goose in mild consternation, still doing his best to ignore its beak. "You know arrooof roo," he grumbled to Wolfie, "I'm er, ah, not the biggest fan of spiders. They're not scary, of course! They're just...arf...woof...woo?"

"Awooooooooooof! Aroooooooooo! Woooooof!" the radio popped back into life as Yávië returned from deliberations with some enthusiastic howling. "Whew, well Wolfie my Wolf, what a finish that was! Everyone's costumes certainly are a bit worse for the wear. Now the judges have some difficult decisions to make and they sure are taking their time about it, but can you blame them? We had explosions, we had battle, we had blind leaps of faith! It really goes to show..."

Exasperated muttering.

"...yes, of course I know we're the judges. It was just a figure of speech, you have to build up suspense with these things. I can't just go announcing scores willy-nilly like some kind of animal!"

...

"Yes, I KNOW I'm an animal! Without further ado..."

“Yes, yes. We know you’re not actually a dog,” the wolf sniffed at the honking goose who had just won the whole obstacle course. “A weird day for canines everywhere when a goose defeats them all at their own game…”

The wolf shook his mighty head (his black mane nearly slipped off), then yapped the gathered contestants to attention. “We shall now begin … THE DISC TOSS!” He padded over to a giant crate full of flat discs. “Here is how it will awoooork!” he howled.

• There will be five rounds, so you have five tosses/posts. For each post, choose one distance (aka roll type; all are 6-sided die) from the list below.

• At the end of 5 rounds, the doggo with the most points wins the disc toss. (These points will be added to your existing points for the costume contest and obstacle course.)

• Those with handlers may of course RP their handlers hurling discs about. If you don’t have a handler…we will assign you one after your first post! :D

• Indicate the type of roll you want in bold at the bottom of your posts

• Updates every 24 hours or so!

• To start, RP rejoining the group in the clearing and choosing your first roll!

OOC: Hello friends! So with Halloween winding down and people taking it slower on the Plaza and / or taking breaks, @Yávië and I were wondering how we should proceed with this contest. We’ve got some ideas for options but would love to hear what you all think!

We could...

a) Break for the rest of the week then try to restart disc toss
b) Skip disc toss and go straight to freestyle for grand finale
c) "Sorry, I'm panicking over NaNo/work/school, ask me later." aka just run it in an arbitrary number of months as part II
d) other ideas??

What say you?

@HONEY IN HER HAIR @Hoglorfen @Menolly @FROM HERE TO THERE @Giliathriel @A BEAR A BEAR

A)

Thanks, you two! I know a couple people are busy IRL or taking a bit of a Plaza break right now, so let's see what next week brings in terms of activity.